2. Plastics

Plastics processing covers all operations involved in the shaping of plastics, transforming the raw material (generally in powder or granulated form, or more rarely a liquid resin) into a finished product (a plastic film, a ski boot, a car bumper, etc.). Mastering polymer transformation processes is of interest to four industrial sectors:

• Polymer (and additive) producers: their problem consists in developing or adapting a polymer to the physical properties required (mechanical properties, appearance, etc.), but also to the transformation process in question, by modifying the molecular structure, the formulation, etc;

• polymer processors (known as "plasturgists"): their objective is to select the material and technology, and adapt the processing parameters (temperature, screw rotation speed, etc.) to obtain...